Wives and Daughters

WYNONNA EARP – Season 2 Episode 12 – SPOILERS

Both Rosita (Tamara Duarte) and Bobo decide (independently of one another) that revenants are never going to get a fair shake from Wynonna and the gang. Bobo tries to make a deal with the newly awakened Bulshar (the demon formerly known as Sheriff Clootie) to avoid spending the afterlife in hell, and Rosita, instead of assisting Wynonna in the birthing process, attacks Waverly and tries to steal the baby. The attempted baby-napping fails, and Rosita suffers no immediate consequences. (Perhaps the Earps feel a bit guilty about using Rosita as a guinea pig to create an antidote for widow poison.) Bobo (Michael Eklund) is impaled by Doc on something wooden. (Bobo’s telekenetic abilities only enable him to move metal objects.) He was then deposited at the bottom of the well where Doc had been imprisoned for a century. Holliday puts a wooden cover on the well to keep Bobo in, but what’s to prevent some of Bobo’s revenant friends from removing the cover and fishing him out of there?

Bobo ends up at the bottom of the well...

We haven’t had any trick shooting by Doc or Wynonna for a while, but we get some in this episode. The Earp sisters run into the Widows in the middle of town (where they are blocking the street with paralyzed townspeople, preventing Waverly from getting Wynonna to the hospital to give birth). The Widow Mercedes wants to partner with Wynonna and kill Bulshar, freeing herself from him. (This on the face of it would seem to be a not bad idea, but Wynonna rejects it.) The Widow Beth disapproves of her sister’s treachery, and threatens to kill Waverly to prevent it. Faux Beth wants to feed Wynonna’s kid to her husband to restore his strength. Wynonna has one bullet that will kill either Bulshar or a widow. (Normal bullets are ineffective against them.)

Peacemaker and the plate recognize one another.

Doc shows up. He pretends that he intends to shoot Wynonna to prevent her from “walking in service to the devil”. Doc and Wynonna take aim at one another.

Let’s stop for a minute and discuss the magic bullet. The plate that was once hidden in Edwin Earp’s briefcase, and which (we learn) is made of Peacemaker metal mixed with ammolite, a mineral composed of fossilized mollusc shells. (An ammolite deposit is responsible for making the Earp Homestead revenant-proof.) Gretta the Iron Witch (Rachel Ancheril), who has been trying to atone for making Wynonna disappear, melts the plate down and turns it into a bullet. She could only make one bullet out of that entire plate, which seems odd because the plate seems big enough to make more bullets than that, but calcium carbonate when heated releases CO2 and becomes calcium oxide, and this could account for the decrease in volume.

The original plan was to kill Bulshar with the magic bullet, but the Widows, being in Wynonna’s way, needed to be killed first. Wynonna fires first, aiming at Doc; then Doc fires. Doc’s bullet splits the magic bullet, and the halves each kill a Widow. Without a magical assist, that shot cannot be made. Since Wynonna fired first, and the magical assistance must come from Peacemaker, it is clear that bullets fired from Peacemaker are not ballistic projectiles. They are guided missiles.

Waverly carries the baby across the boundary of the Ghost River Triangle, and neither of them burn, meaning that neither of them have revenant blood. (This is clearly the assumption we are meant to make, but there have been no revenant/human hybrids with which to experiment, so it is unknown if such hybrids are restricted to the Triangle like full-blooded revenants.) Doc accuses Bobo of lying about being Waverly’s dad, but Bobo clarifies, saying that he didn’t say she was his daughter. He said she was kin.

The magic bullet in the hand of the Iron Witch, and (inset) being split mid-flight by a bullet from Doc’s gun.

Wynonna sends the baby to live with Gus somewhere far away from the Ghost River Triangle. She names the kid Alice Michelle, after Doc’s mother Alice and Wynonna’s mom Michelle. From Waverly’s wall in the first episode of Season One, it had been assumed by many that Wynonna’s mother was named Wendy, but Wendy was born on the same date (17 November) as Ward Earp, and her name begins with ‘W’, so she is more likely to be his (possibly twin) sister than his wife. Perhaps Rossier was her married name and not her maiden name.

Nicole’s divorce papers come through. Sitting in her cruiser, Nicole looks them over, then opens a file on the Cult of Bulshar. For some reason she has Bulshar‘s ring (either the one taken from the hand of the demon by Widow Mercedes, or one just like it).

Wynonna, motorcycling out of town, recalls (in her head) something her mother once told her: “There are men, Wynonna, mean as a rattlesnake cornered at dusk,” her mother had said. “And there are demons sweet as clover honey. And then there’s him. I told you he was real. I never stopped believing. But he will rise, and when he does, you’ll believe it too.” After she finds her mom somewhere in the mountains, Wynonna tells her: “Fine. You were right. Bulshar’s back. Now what do we do about it, Mama?”

QUESTIONS TO BE ANSWERED IN SEASON 3: Are cornered rattlesnakes even meaner at dusk? Does Officer Haught have some previous involvement with the Cult of Bulshar? Now that we know that Waverly is not part revenant, and also that she is not an Earp, who is her father? And how is he related to Bobo? (Mama Earp, who will almost certainly be part of next season, should be able to definitively answer that.) Will Mercedes Gardner’s face be restored after the death of the widows? Will Black Badge return to enforce that contract Wynonna, Waverly, Jeremy, and Doc signed in blood in Episode 2.1?

Katherine Barrell (Nicole) is Jacqueline Gill in the 2014 horror film THE SCAREHOUSE, a tale of six college girls who are invited to a party inside an elaborate Halloween funhouse six years after a tragic accident. Once inside, they realize that what their host really seeks is revenge. Filmed in Windsor, Ontario, THE SCAREHOUSE will be available On Demand from Showtime beginning 1 October, and will air on Showtime 3 October at 2:30am. A trailer is available on YouTube.

And Provost-Chalkley is also Cleo Harris in the long-anticipated horror film BUCKOUT ROAD, based on an urban legend about a spooky stretch of road in Westchester County, New York. (A college class project on creation and destruction of modern myth, turns terrifying when three students come to realize the legend may, in fact, be real.) A trailer is available on Vimeo. BUCKOUT ROAD will premiere at the 2017 Calgary International Film Festival on 22 September at 10:15pm (upstairs at the Globe Cinema).